Page 12 of Shadow Angel
“Thanks.” Ryder nodded and turned to Beth. “I appreciate you coming in on the case with me.” He glanced toward the sofa and shook his head. “I sure hope I never see a murder like this one again.”
“Hmm.” Beth didn’t want to sugarcoat the situation for him, but she already knew where the investigation was headed—she’d seen it so many times before. “Well buckle up, because this guy has only started. From what I’m seeing, he does this all over, so he’ll do it again. This is why we asked to take the case. This killer won’t be stopped until we stop him. He isn’t someone you should try to tackle alone.” She narrowed her gaze. “He is enjoying himself right now and you’ll be a threat to him. Remember that if he ever has you cornered, don’t hesitate to take him down or you’ll be his next victim.”
THIRTEEN
TUESDAY AFTERNOON
Rattlesnake Creek
Time stopped ticking by for Vicki Strauss. No longer the minutes, seconds, hours, days, or weeks sped by. Instead her life had become a series of agonizing breaths. The naked, masked monster who held her captive had subjected her to every indecency known to man. This time she’d woken in screaming pain from a drugged sleep. Something terrible had happened to her face, and she couldn’t move her lips or close her eyes. Trembling and so cold, even with the fire roaring in the hearth of the old dilapidated cabin, she turned her head and gaped in horror at the crude stitches attaching her arms to the back of a large sofa. Shock grasped her, swimming her head and making her limbs jerk. So much pain but she couldn’t close her eyes to block it out. What had he done to her this time? The sofa dipped as he sat beside her, staring at her and then running a brush through her long hair. Shuddering, she tried to speak to him but with her lips drawn back in a wide smile, the words came out strange.
“You don’t need to thank me.” The man smiled at her. His mouth showing through the hideous, zombie mask. She wondered why he wore the mask now. When he’d kidnapped her, she’d recognized him as one of the men she’d performed a private dance for just last week. “We’ve had so much fun together it would be a shame to spoil it. I want to remember you just like this, smiling and welcoming me like you did at the club. I know you didn’t want to leave me and now you can stay. I’ll never have to share you with anyone again. You’ve become one of my darlings. Are you happy, Vicki?”
With the feeling of hot needles running through her, Vicki screamed. She had to get away and if tearing her flesh from the sofa was her only escape, so be it. She wrenched at her arms, but they were fixed so tight she couldn’t move. Sobbing in extreme agony, she stared at the amused expression of the disgusting excuse for a human in front of her. “Nooooo.”
Tears ran down her cheeks and the man jumped to his feet. “Stop crying, you’ll ruin your makeup.” He paced up and down before the sofa. “I’ll come by and visit you every night. You’d like that, right? We’re so good together. You won’t leave me like Cassie. She was so ungrateful. I leave her alone for one night and she just vanishes.”
Heedless of the pain, Vicki shook her head. She tried to form words but without the use of her lips only nonsense came out. He was mumbling now as if talking to himself or an imaginary friend. Terrified, she watched as he paced up and down as if trying to control the situation. When he stopped and turned to look at her, she cringed. How much more torture must she endure?
“I figured you’d be different.” He stared at her. “You were nice to me at the saloon. I know you wanted to be with me, I could see it in your eyes.” He chuckled. “I’ve been watching you for a long time. I’ve seen the way you looked at me when you danced. Why did you suddenly start looking at the other guys? They don’t love you like I do.”
Unable to reply, Vicki could only stare into his wild crazy eyes. She’d been warned about private dances and how some men became fixated on a dancer as if they’d become his girlfriend. She’d performed her dance but had never allowed him or any of the others to touch her. She shook her head again, making the pain level spike, and then groaned.
“When you came to me and danced real sexy, I knew right then that no one else could have you. The thought of you smiling at another man like the way you smiled at me, just drove me darn right crazy.” He bent to stare into her eyes and then smiled. “You told me you wanted to leave that place someday and I’ve made your wish come true. You belong to me now.” He walked out of eyeshot behind the sofa. “Now we’ll always be together.” He chuckled. “I can see by your ‘come get me’ smile that you agree.”
Terror gripped her as he moved out of sight. What horrific torture did he have planned for her this time? Something cold touched her ears. A burst of red-hot pain screamed through her head and then time stopped forever.
FOURTEEN
Theeau de deathlingered and when they arrived back from searching Cassie Burnham’s home, Beth excused herself and took a shower and changed before returning to the office. They’d collected possible DNA samples for Wolfe and packed them away securely for the morning’s trip. Intrigued by the killer’s MO, she went straight to her laptop to search for any similar cases. The killer’s method of stitching the victim to the sofa and changing her face was unusual but something in the back of her mind triggered a memory, not specifically the same but close. In one case a killer had placed a mask over the victims’ faces, making them all appear the same. Another had changed the appearance using superglue. She scanned the psychological profiles on the killers, the conclusions being what she’d known to be true. The psychopath had changed the victim to fit his fantasy. The trigger factor that made them kill was usually centered on the victim.Just like him.
Her father’s face lingered in her mind and she slapped it away, but the memories of him never left her. Cutthroat Jack was serving multiple life sentences for murder and she hated him. Having a notorious serial killer as a father was bad enough, but his victims looked just like her. Had she been his motive for killing? Were all those deaths her fault? Had he lusted after her and his sick depraved mind pushed him to murder? He’d killed her mother to keep her quiet. She’d been there unable to do a thing to help her. That terrible night, she’d heard maniacal ramblings dribbling from his twisted mind as he plunged the knife deep.
Horrified, confused, but with the deep-seated knowledge that some part of her understood him had terrified her. She’d ran and kept on running but she carried his genes, and a legacy to be just like him. The thought left her sick to her stomach. She’d fought her dark side with all her being but had no control over what she’d become. Realization she had compassion for the victims of crime had given her hope. From that day on, she’d used her dark side to stop men like him.
With effort, she smothered the living nightmares running rampant though her head and forced her mind to concentrate on the screen. Her best source of weird and unusual behavior was the dark web. After running a few lines of code to access the forbidden zones, she slid into the world used by the “depraved for pay” society that lived in streams of data. This was the place anything and everything was for sale. Teasers were posted like advertisements for specials at the mall. These posts often led to auctions of children, photographs, or movies. Many people had specific tastes and using certain words or phrases often got results. She hunted for “embroidery floss” and had gotten a few hits when an alert came in about another murder victim found in a shallow grave in Running Water, Montana. She pushed back her chair and walked to the coffee machine to clear the current case from her mind.
For her it was like changing channels on the TV. Most people watched more than one show or followed a number of series, moving from one to the other without a problem. It was the same for her. She could move from one case to another and keep each case clear in her mind. The Levi Jackson case may not have held her center of attention, but it was there lurking in the background. She’d been waiting for him to make his next move and he’d just made it. As she’d predicted, he’d also moved to another town in his comfort zone. The recent murder in Running Water fit his MO. A woman found raped and strangled in a shallow grave in Jackson’s favorite dumping ground had been covered with lawn clippings. She shook her head. No arrests had been made and no suspects according to the case files. Because of his acquittal, Jackson had been dismissed as a possible suspect when his MO was as good as a fingerprint.
“Is everything okay?” Styles joined her at the kitchenette and filled a cup from the coffee pot. His hair was still damp from the shower. “You look miles away.”
Acting nonchalant, Beth shrugged and dragged her thoughts back to the Cassie Burnham case. “The dark web is usually a font of information, but I must be off my game. I can’t find anything about creeps who use embroidery floss as a torture weapon and nothing of real significance in any other cases. I’ve only searched Montana. I figure we need to look in other states.”
“I have a theory about our killer.” Styles sipped his coffee, moaned in appreciation, and then leaned against the counter. “One, he’s a miner because they have access to maps covering the entire state on a regular basis. Secondly, on the maps he’d know what areas had been purchased by the mines and who owned the mining leases. It’s public record.”
Confused, Beth stared at him over the rim of her cup. “Okay but I’m not following why this is significant to the case.”
“Well, if he discovered where the land was purchased, he’d know where to find the deserted cabins.” Styles grinned. “I’ve been searching through them and there’s a ton of them, even ghost towns. No one goes there because it’s owned by the mines. You know, blasting dangers and the like. Most are posted withno trespassingsigns.”
Uncomprehending, Beth pushed her long hair behind one ear and shrugged. “So?”
“We found Cassie Burnham only by following a forest warden’s hunch. We searched for a murder of crows, right?” Styles looked animated. “This guy could have been stowing bodies all over in deserted cabins and no one would have found them.”
Beth sipped her coffee. “So you figure he’s been doing this for a time and no one has discovered a body?”
“Darn sure.” Styles nodded. “You figure his fantasy is centered around strippers, exotic dancers, or whatever the correct term is this week. The problem is often gentlemen’s club dancers are transient. They come and go, so maybe if they didn’t show for work, nobody reported them missing… or nobody cared. I figure it’s worth searching the databases and seeing if there’s been any unsolved missing persons cases hereabouts.”
The possibilities were endless. Beth sighed. “The problem with people in the high-risk categories is that most times they don’t have anyone in their lives who cares about them. Most don’t have a place to sleep. Some are just scraping out an existence. Nine times out of ten, the local PD doesn’t put in the time to look for them when they discover they’re missing. If they’re found dead, most of them are just another John or Jane Doe. They are a serial killer’s smorgasbord because nobody cares.”
